One knowledgeable in the field will be aware that managing grease interceptors in food service establishment applications represents a major challenge. This is particularly true where management of multiple grease traps or interceptors must be carried out over a wide geography. Most food service establishments have limited field resources dedicated and available to monitoring grease trap performance.
Consequently, on-site inspection of interceptors is often ignored or overlooked. Where inspection is carried out, it may be left to the judgment of untrained personnel or to pumping companies charged with periodically pumping waste from the grease trap. Untrained personnel may misinterpret or ignore grease trap conditions, and pumping companies may be considered to have an interest in pumping even when unnecessary. Furthermore, where a pumping company removes waste grease, there may be no independent method for confirming that the pumping was carried out properly or even whether it was actually carried out at all.
However, proper monitoring and maintenance of a grease interceptor provides a plurality of important advantages. For example, monitoring can provide insight into certain inefficient interceptor operations or malfunctions, such as high water, potential downstream lateral line restrictions, plumbing problems, residual grease build ups, and even poor kitchen practices. Real-time and ongoing performance data enable facility managers to optimize the maintenance budgets for grease-related expenses while avoiding expensive post-backup remediation and overflows.
Under the practices of the prior art, many food service establishments have attempted to predict when pumping might be required based on past performance or to initiate pumping only in response to a known pumping requirement. However, there are numerous variables that frustrate the ability to predict grease trap conditions safely and efficiently. For example, required pumping will vary based on the menu, the number of meals served, seasonal business variations, the level of grinding, and the performance of the pump operator.
Methods and devices have been disclosed by the prior art for manually sampling the contents of grease traps and other containment vessels to attempt to gain a reading of settled solids, liquids, and other layers. One method involves opening the containment vessel and inserting a clear tubular member, such as that indicated at 100 in FIG. 2, into the contained materials. As the tube 100 is inserted into the vessel, a valve at the bottom of the tube 100 is opened to permit materials to flow into the tube 100 until the bottom of the tank is reached. Then, a valve must be actuated to close the tube 100 to trap the material inside. The tube 100 is then removed and the level of the retained materials must be manually measured, such as by a tape measure 200 or markings disposed on the tube 100. Then, the contents must be released by manually actuating the valve.
Obviously, such methods suffer from a number of drawbacks. Manually checking material levels is inherently messy and time consuming and requires full access to the interior of the containment vessel. With such drawbacks, ignoring the need for sampling becomes much more likely. Moreover, manual sampling is prone to error and demands some level of expertise and diligence. Likewise, visual inspections of grease interceptors can be deceiving and do not reveal any information beyond the top layer of material.
Accordingly, monitoring is often carried out improperly or not at all. Even where monitoring is undertaken, it is far from convenient and may be done only sporadically. Accordingly, necessary pumping may be foregone thereby resulting in overflows and consequential damage and disruption to normal business operations. In other cases, pumping may be carried out prematurely based on an incorrect belief of an imminent need for material removal thereby wasting time and resources.
With a knowledge of the previous state of the art, the present inventors appreciated a need for a system and method for remotely monitoring stratified layers in grease interceptors on a continual basis in an accurate manner and for providing remote access to acquired information without a need for manually accessing the grease interceptors.